


The Boxing Blunder

by NotManTheLessButNatureMore



Series: Cormoran the (Younger) Giant [7]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Strike can be an idiot sometimes, the Herberts to the rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 23:06:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19029796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotManTheLessButNatureMore/pseuds/NotManTheLessButNatureMore
Summary: Teenage Cormoran is an idiot, cue the Herberts to the rescue.





	The Boxing Blunder

**Author's Note:**

> So my last fic had me exploring Cormoran’s disregard for his own health, and it got me thinking whether it was just a result of his disability (not quite accepting that he has more strict limitations now) or if he was always that way inclined. So here’s young Strike being an idiot with regards to his health. Sorry Strike.

“Ow!”

 

Cormoran’s voice drifted towards Nick’s mum has she approached the closed door, it sounded strange though, muffled.

 

“Oggy, mate.” Nick’s voice joined in, he sounded like he was wincing.

 

“Just tilt your head up, good lad.” Her husband said, voice as hushed as Nick’s.

 

She heard a sharp hiss that had her flinging the door open with a sudden smack as it came into contact with the fridge behind it.

 

“Oh my god!” Nick’s mum exclaimed.

 

Nick, her husband and his friend Mick from work were all gathered around Cormoran who sat at the table looking like he’d been in a car crash. His face was one great splatter of blood, running from his nose and bottom lip and a cut above his right eye, which was already swollen shut.

 

“What the hell happened?” She demanded as she dropped her shopping bags by the door and sprinted the few steps to the table.

 

“It was just a little accident.” Mick said and then practically withered as Nick’s mum turned and gave him a look worthy of Medusa. “Or not.” He added quietly.

 

“Look at your face.” Mrs Herbert said, taking Cormoran’s chin and gently turning his head. There were raw, red scratches across his right cheek and right ear. His eye was puffy and discoloured where it had swollen shut and she winced when she saw his split lip and bloody teeth. Her husband held a wad of tissues in one hand from where he had been mopping the blood that trickled from Cormoran’s nose and there was a red stained gym towel on the table where Nick was standing, looking worriedly at his best mate.

 

“Is someone going to tell me what happened?” She asked again.

 

“I had a boxing match.” Cormoran answered, his voice distorted by his injured nose.

 

“A boxing... what, today? Well where was your headgear? I thought Peadar didn’t let you lot box without it?” Peadar was the boxing couch at the club Cormoran had joined. He was as strict as he was obsessed with health and safety and although he half killed the boys at training Nick’s mum knew he never let them box without wearing every bit of protection they could and even then he only arranged friendly matches between members of his own club and two others that he trusted.

 

“He doesn’t.” Nick offered quietly.

 

Mrs Herbert looked down at Cormoran. He was wearing the usual long black boxing shorts with a wide strip of white along the sides that he always wore for matches, but he had an unmarked, save for blood, t-shirt on. They always wore the dark green t-shirt of Peadar’s boxing club during matches.

 

“Alright, the truth. Right. Now.” She said with a look of warning at all of them.

 

“Peadar might not have known about this one.” Her husband slowly confessed.

 

“What?” She half shouted.

 

“It wasn’t exactly authorised.” Mick supplied.

 

“Did you know about this?” She asked, turning on Nick’s dad.

 

“No! No, of course not. Do you really think I’d have let the idiot go ahead with it.”

 

“What about you?” She asked Nick.

 

“What? No, I swear-“

 

“-they didn’t know Mrs Herbert. I didn’t tell anyone.” Cormoran said, grimacing as he tried to straighten in his seat. Nick stepped forward and pressed a tissue to the cut above Cormoran’s eye where it had started to bleed again.

 

“And let that be a lesson to you, don’t enter an underground boxing match with no coach. You’re guaranteed to end up with an opponent twice your size.” Mick said with a stern look.

 

“Were you there?” Mrs Herbert asked.

 

“I was there with some of the lads, one of them heard about a few matches going on and we thought we’d take a look. Came across young Cormoran here just as he hit the deck and I recognised him from hanging around with Nick.”

 

“Go get some ice out of the freezer Nick, and wrap it in a tea towel.” She stood and tilted Cormoran’s head to get a better look at the pupil of his good eye.

 

“Do you feel sick? What about your ribs, where else were you hit?” She asked, looking at the way Cormoran held himself slightly hunched over in the chair, one hand across his lap and the other with a death grip on the side of the table.

 

“I’m alright.” He said, his voice strained and revealing the pain he was in.

 

“No you’re not! What in God’s name were you thinking? Does your mum know?”

 

“No!”

 

“He asked me not to bring him home, that’s why we came here.” Mick supplied.

 

”Well she’s going to find out, look at the state of you!”

 

Cormoran groaned, not entirely due to the throbbing in his face and ribs. Nick returned with the ice and handed it to Cormoran who held it to his nose and then pulled it away with a hiss as the throbbing turned to a fiery pain. He settled it against his jaw instead, remembering vaguely that it was the hit to his left cheek that had floored him.

 

“For god’s sake.” Mrs Herbert muttered to herself as she grabbed their first aid box from the cabinet under the sink. It was once well stocked but now contained just some alcohol wipes, a temporary sling and uselessly shaped plasters.

 

“I’ll head off.” Mick said with a nod towards the front hall.

 

“Thanks for bringing him here Mick.” Nick’s dad said, his face uncharacteristically serious.

 

As Mick saw himself out Nick crouched down to where Cormoran had bent over in his seat.

 

“What the hell Oggy?” He asked in a hushed tone, not quite hushed enough however for his mother not to hear.

 

“Yes, ‘what the hell Oggy?’” She repeated as she brought a bowl of dettol and some cotton buds over to the table. Cormoran just looked from Nick to Mr Herbert who offered no help.

 

“It was just a boxing match.”

 

“No, it was not. You could have been killed.”

 

“I wasn’t gonna be-“ His rebuttal was interrupted by a sharp hiss as the sting of disinfectant sent fire across his cheek. Nick’s mum held the cotton bud to his face with perhaps a little more force than necessary and raised an eyebrow.

 

“Why did you fight in some underground bloody... blood bath?” She asked.

 

“Wasn’t quite a blood bath love.” Her husband countered as he threw some of the bloodied tissues into the bin.

 

“Explain! Right now Cormoran!” She said, using the full force of her parenting skills.

 

Cormoran took a breath and looked around at all three of them before letting out a long sigh.

 

“It was for money. The fight, I did it for money.”

 

“What?” Nick’s parents both said.

 

“How much money?” Nick asked and then withered under his mother’s gaze.

 

“A guy from the block of flats in Brixton that we lived in last year, he organises fights that... aren’t exactly in line with the boxing federations rulebook.” He confessed.

 

“Well what do you need the money for?” Nick’s dad asked.

 

Cormoran looked down and his head quirked to one side, a sign of shame that Nick’s mum had come to recognise.

 

“Mum... her new boyfriend, Freddie, owes money to a guy and... well, Freddie has a daughter with his ex so the guy he owes money to smashed up her flat. He took her purse and some jewellery. Anyway, I was afraid... I thought that if I helped get some of the money then our flat wouldn’t be next.”

 

“Oh, of course.” Mrs Herbert said defeatedly.

 

“I’ve won all my other bouts-“

 

“Yeah at the boxing club with Peadar there making sure no one scrambles your brain you twat.” Nick said with a scowl earning him a one-eyed glare from Cormoran.

 

“I had to do something, I’m the-“

 

Nick’s mum interrupted, pulling her hand back from his face and looking down at him.

 

“You’re what? The man of the house? You’re a teenager Cormoran! A child! It’s not your responsibility to-“

 

“-yes it is.” Cormoran said forcefully and the dark look on his face stopped any response from being uttered.

 

Mrs Herbert finished washing the cuts on the side of his face, the bowl of disinfectant now with rivers of pink changing its colour.

 

“How much did you make?” She asked.

 

Cormoran pulled a wad of notes from the pocket of his shorts.

 

“£100 pound for taking part plus £100 more for making it past the first round.” He explained.

 

“You made it past the first round?” Nick said, his voice laced with equal parts surprise and admiration.

 

“Well, that’s something.” His dad said, earning an exasperated sigh from his wife.

 

“That’s going to need stitches.” She stated, tilting Cormoran’s head back and gently pressing a cotton bud against the cut above his eye. His nose and lip had stopped bleeding but the cut on his forehead was ragged and still oozed blood.

 

“Great.” Cormoran groaned.

 

“I’ll call your Mum and she can meet us at A&E.”

 

“No, you can’t-“

 

“She’s going to find out Cormoran. Or were you planning on hiding out here until those bruises disappeared?”

 

Nick frowned in solidarity with his friend, knowing that he was headed for a serious rollicking from Leda. He’d gotten the fright of his life when he’d opened the door to find Cormoran with a bloody gym towel held to his face while Mick propped him up. Nick had yelled for his dad and then helped Mick get Cormoran into the kitchen where he’d promptly collapsed into a chair, Nick’s chair as usual, he’d vaguely realised.

 

“Sorry.” Cormoran said quietly as he looked around at the mess and concerned faces he was responsible for.

 

He sat still as the drying blood was wiped from his face and where it had dripped down his neck. His face felt hot and his eye was throbbing in time with his heartbeat where it had swollen shut. His ribs also felt particularly delicate and the front of his left hip felt bruised from where his opponent had let a punch stray below the waistband of his shorts.

 

“Right, you call Leda and tell her to meet us at A&E.” Nick’s mum said to her husband as she put a hand on Cormoran’s arm and motioned for him to rise.

 

He stood and paused as a wave of dizziness and a stinging pain in his ribs competed for his attention. It was decided that Mr Herbert would stay behind, Spanner would be finished at his after-school club soon and would need to be picked up, and Mrs Herbert would bring Cormoran to hospital. Nick argued his case for going as they moved to the car, citing everything from being a useful distraction for Cormoran to it being practical experience for his biology studies. In the end his mum had relented to stop him badgering her, but also because as fond as she was of Cormoran she didn’t know if they’d fill endless A&E hours with conversation.

 

——————-

 

“They only had Diet Coke.” Nick said as he held the can out to Cormoran and ripped the plastic wrapping from the front of the cheese and ham sandwich he’d chosen for him. Nick had made the trek through a maze of corridors to the hospital canteen to find some food of a slightly better caliber than the vending machine in the corner. He handed his mum a turkey sandwich and ripped open his own cheese and ham one.

 

“Thanks.” Cormoran said. He was sitting sideways in the plastic waiting room chair with his back held straight to take some of the pressure off his ribs. A nurse had seen him and taped a bandage to his forehead but they’d been told that he’d be waiting a while for an X-ray, which he of course complained he didn’t need, and for his wound to be stitched.

 

“Only one bag of cheese and onion left.” Nick said as he opened a bag of crisps, took a few, and balanced them on Cormoran’s leg. There had only been two seats free in the busy waiting room when they’d arrived so Nick had accepted a place on the floor in front of his mum and Cormoran, trying not to think about the bodily fluids that may have once been under him. On the plus side he had managed to indirectly raise a smile from Cormoran when a toddler had walked past him and tried to poke him in the ear.

 

The clacking of heels drew their attention beyond the food and suddenly Nick was almost barrelled over as Leda threw her arms around her son.

 

“Oh my god, darling what happened? Are you alright?” She said, a hand on each of his shoulders as she bent down to become eye level with Cormoran.

 

“Yeah.” Cormoran replied, not quite sure how much Nick’s dad had given away. She didn’t seem angry, just concerned.

 

“Look at your poor face.” She exclaimed and then placed a hand softly on the side of his face. The bag of crisps in Cormoran’s lap began to slide to the floor and Nick made a grab for them, ending up with his face inches away from Leda’s long legs, bare from mid-thigh down where her leather skirt ended.

 

“Uh, I’ll just...” He said, extricating himself from his position on the floor, suddenly flustered.

 

“Thanks love.” Leda smiled tightly at Nick as he moved out of their way.

 

“We’re just waiting on an X-ray and some stitches.” Mrs Herbert supplied. Leda nodded and then turned her attention back to her first born. Nick’s mum couldn’t help but glance down Leda’s body. Every time they met she ended up feeling old and dowdy. Leda looked like Cormoran’s older sister, albeit with a significant age gap, but she certainly didn’t look like she had two teenage children. Her figure was thin but with curves in all the right places and her thick glossy hair, full lips and long toned legs were forever youthful. ‘Well you don’t attract rockstars and modelling contracts looking like a haggard wench’, Nick’s mum thought.

 

“Oh my poor darling. What happened?” Leda said in that baby voice that she still used when either of her children were sick, much to their embarrassment.

 

“Uh, what did Nick’s dad say?” Cormoran asked coyly, feeling Mrs Herbert’s eyes on him.

 

“Just that you’d lost a boxing match. I didn’t know you had a fight today, why didn’t you tell me? I’d have come to see you, you know I would.” Leda said, smoothing back a few stray curls that had been dried in odd angles by sweat after his fight.

 

“You were busy, I, uh, it didn’t matter anyway. Wasn’t an important one.” Cormoran said without his usual assured tone. Nick just raised an eyebrow and looked between his mum and best mate.

 

“Darling you know all your little fights are important to me.” Leda responded and Nick’s mum had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. It seemed like she’d had more reservations than Leda herself when Cormoran had told them he was joining a boxing club. Where Leda was excited and enthusiastic, Nick’s mum was a bundle of nerves and worry watching his first fight, the only one she’d had the stomach to watch, even if he had won. He was the same age as Nick, as much as he looked and acted older, and the thought of Nick stepping into a ring had her feeling faint.

 

“Sorry.” Cormoran said, a glance thrown Mrs Herbert’s way.

 

“Oh, you’ve nothing to be sorry for baby. Don’t worry, next time you’ll knock his head off, won’t he?” She said with a laugh, turning to Nick and his mum.

 

Nick and Cormoran both held their breath as Mrs Herbert opened her mouth to speak. She paused, looking at the strange mixture of pride and concern on Leda’s face and then saw Cormoran’s face drop.

 

“Yes. Next time.” She replied slowly. Cormoran furrowed his brows and she just gave him a reluctant smile but with a sharpness in her eyes that told him he hadn’t heard the end of it.

 

“Cameron Stick?” A voice from the end of the waiting room called. Leda straightened up and put a hand under Cormoran’s elbow.

 

“Here! Oh, and it’s Strike, Cormoran Strike.” She said with a bright smile thrown towards the male nurse.

 

Leda said her thanks to Mrs Herbert as they rose and then Nick and his mum watched as Leda helped a slow moving Cormoran through a set of double doors.

 

“Right, well.” Mrs Herbert sighed as she grabbed her handbag from the floor. She knew Nick would be on the phone to Cormoran tonight when he got home, demanding all the details of the fight that he had been afraid to ask about in front of his parents. She’d find out then that Cormoran was home safely and on the mend but she couldn’t help but feel slightly at a loss now that he was out of her hands.

 

She turned and saw Nick looking at the remains of their canteen food.

 

“Can we get fish and chips on the way home?”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it and as usual (but never less appreciated) thanks for reading! :)


End file.
